On the eve of the inauguration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, now Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila said that Nigerians have reason to celebrate because of the new President’s democratic credentials.
“Tinubu has proved over the years to be an uncommon democrat who always works assiduously for Nigeria to be great”, Gbajabiamila said in a statement released by his spokesperson, Lanre Lasisi. The former Speaker ended by saying that Nigeria is “lucky” to have Tinubu as our incoming president, because his democratic credentials were not in doubt.
Barely seven months into office, many Nigerians will today have good reason to doubt Gbajabiamila’s rather generous assurances to Nigerians about his principal, at least, considering Tinubu’s recent political meddling with constitutional matters in Ondo and Rivers states. Indeed, many Nigerians have sensed a creeping rise in undemocratic credentials and mafia-boss style of political leadership in the new President, and are rightly concerned.
Let’s start with Ondo State. After months of crisis and political combat between factions loyal to Governor Rotimi Akeredolu and his deputy, Lucky Aiyedatiwa in the state cabinet, the state legislature and the state’s branch of the All Progressives Party (APC), President Tinubu called for a meeting at Aso Rock in late November to “resolve” the impasse.
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That meeting ended with all parties “agreeing” to maintain the “status quo”, which as the presidency reported on its website, meant that “Governor Akeredolu remains Chief Executive of the State, Aiyedatiwa remains Deputy Governor, and members of the State Executive Council continue their respective duties, even as the leadership of the State’s House of Assembly and the APC Chapter in Ondo State is preserved”.
But the problem was not political but constitutional and thus could not have been settled by any political deals or talks, wherever they are held. As we wrote in an earlier editorial published on Tuesday November 29, 2023: “More than two and half months after Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State returned to Nigeria on September 7, 2023, from a three-month medical leave in Germany, he is yet to perform any function required by the Office of the Governor of the State. Governor Akeredolu, who has been in his residence in Ibadan, Oyo State, has only been seen once publicly when governors of the South-West region visited him. Governor Akeredolu’s absence from Akure, the Ondo State capital, and his deputy’s inability to act have grounded the state’s administrative machinery. The quagmire in the state was further compounded when state lawmakers moved to impeach the deputy governor”.
Our editorial then pointed out that the appropriate thing to do was for the Speaker of the Ondo State House of Assembly to call for an independent medical enquiry, as the constitution recommends, and if the results find against the Governor Rotimi’s physical or mental ability to discharge the functions of his office, his deputy should be installed as Acting Governor, and as the substantive governor after a constitutionally defined period, if the Governor Rotimi’s situation did not improve enough for him to resume the duties of his office; all these according to the constitution, pure and simple.
Rather than toe the constitutional line, as any true democrat would, Tinubu chose the path of political deal-making by an unconstitutional political settlement that leaves an illegal taste in the mouth. But the President’s position was, and remains, in clear contradiction to the Nigerian Constitution, the supreme law of the land. Tinubu’s “status quo ante” in Ondo would collapse less than a week later as Governor Rotimi left again for medical treatment in Germany, leaving all no choice but to install Aiyedatiwa as Acting Governor.
Yet, emboldened by the appearance of success, Tinubu soon again intervened politically to settle a purely constttutional matter in Rivers State, a state where opposition Peoples Democratic Party rules. In the case of Rivers, the issues are many and fuzzy, but the constitutional implications of some are clear: No one other than an elected governor in a state should be responsible for taking decisions on behalf of the government and people of the state; a state budget presented and approved by only four members of a 32-strong House of Assembly cannot stand; and the position of lawmakers who cross-carpeted to another party must be decided by the courts, not the governor or the presidency.
Yet, rather than toe the path of democracy and constitutionalism and make all three implications above clear to all parties as the Chief Guardian of the Nigerian Constitution, in his position as President, Tinubu has chosen, yet again, to deal away the constitution on the altar of self-interested politics. In Ondo, as in Rivers, Tinubu misunderstands that the constitution is sacrosanct, that its provisions are for all ages, and that even the president cannot choose and pick which parts of the constitution to obey, and which to discard when politically convenient.
We urge the President to reclaim his much-vaunted democratic credentials by desisting from unnecessary and undue interference on constitutional matters in the states. Not too long ago in Nigeria, we had a president who would deny some states their due allocations from the federation account against the dictates of the Constitution. All well-meaning Nigerians condemned him for it. It is only fit and proper, then, that yesterday’s victims of unconstitutional presidential behaviour should not be today’s promoters of unconstitutional presidential deals.
